Omar Ayub Khan to Lead Pakistan’s Competitiveness Delegation to TCI Annual Conference at Lyon, France

Islamabad, October 5, 2006: The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint venture of the Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Finance and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will be participating at the 9th annual conference of The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) in Lyon, France from the 9th to 13th of October 2006. The CSF will be showcasing Pakistan’s commitment to be more competitive.

The Minister of State for Finance and Chairman CSF, Mr. Omar Ayub Khan, will make a presentation on Pakistan’s various initiatives on competitiveness. There will be two breakout sessions, one for bio-technology and one on innovation journalism. At each session a representative/presenter from the delegation will make a presentation followed by comments and interaction with global experts who will provide feedback on competitiveness initiatives in Pakistan.

The Conference will include discussions of selected clusters in Europe, innovation journalism programmes, training sessions, an academic summit, plenaries on hot topics and different levels of breakouts. Members and new participants will join together to share ideas, build alliances and explore the best modes of economic development. Additionally, information will be offered about specific clusters, introductory courses on cluster theory and presentations given by an array of world experts. TCI will provide information about past cluster projects and reports about new developments over the world.

Participation at the Lyon conference will build on an exchange of communications between the Barcelona-based World Competitiveness Institute (TCI) and Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance. The creation of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) and the TCI Regional Conference (held in Islamabad in May 2006) demonstrate Pakistan’s commitment to make its economy more competitive. The Lyon conference will provide a venue for Pakistan’s maiden presentation of its competitiveness plan and how a growing public-private dialogue is working to improve Pakistan’s standing in global competitiveness rankings.

The main theme of the conference is “Governance and Business Involvement in Cluster Initiatives”. The conference will address cluster governance issues in-depth, as it is the cornerstone of the emergence, sustainability and success of clusters as well as the development of innovation journalism programmes. The core of governance is how to involve relevant actors in a process to reach certain objectives. The representatives from the public sector will play a very important role in discussing issues and initiatives with participants from other countries.

The role of the business community and their involvement as a pre-requisite for successful clusters will also be discussed, and members from the private sector will share their experience and strategies with global leaders in implementing and creating opportunities.

The training sessions will provide an opportunity for policy makers and businesses to be understand the clusters’ theories and best practices. The cluster tours and inter-cluster meetings will be an opportunity for the delegation members to benchmark their initiatives with world standards.

Mr. Omar Ayub Khan, Chairman of the Competitiveness Support Fund and Minister of State for Finance, will lead the delegation. The delegation consists of professionals from both public and private sector.

- ENDS -